Photo Love: An Auspicious Evening

Yesterday evening, after coming home from a great dinner with some fantastic friends, me and the hubs had a little visitor: A fledgling great horned owl.

I can't tell you how spiritual and touching it was to be this close to such an amazing animal.

It still had its downy feathers.

We have no real idea about how it got in. There are only two viable options. It could have come through both cat doors (either with or without help from our cat--highly unlikely), or it came down the chimney. I'm guessing the latter.

Robb used my snowboarding gloves and caught it, took it to the edge of the woods, and watched it fly away under the full moon.

Simply breathtaking.

On This Day...

I can't say it has been easy.

These last two years have been pretty unforgiving for both of us, babe, and when I look back now, I can only think, "What would I have done without him?"

You have become such an integral part of my life, that I literally cannot imagine a life without you. And you know how active my imagination is.

We have had some pretty rough patches. There was one day, not all that long ago, that I tried to imagine a life without you, and the furthest I got was a scenario where it wasn't my life at all--it was a stranger's life. I was so angry and hurt that day, and I truly thought that we would not get through it.

But we did. And here we are, celebrating our second anniversary. On this day, two years ago, I was what I like to call, in my Britney mode: chaotic. It is not easy, to say that least, to plan, arrange, pay for, and completely organize a homemade wedding. For 150 people. At my mom's house.

It is also not easy to lose a father two months before he is supposed to walk you down the aisle, holding your manicured hand in his calloused one, tears in his eyes as he escorts you away from childhood and into a world that only you can navigate. It is not easy to stand there, in front of everyone you love--and some you don't--and with all those eyes on you, only notice the pair that aren't there. It isn't easy to acknowledge that I won't have a father-daughter dance, that I won't see my mom and dad there next to us on the dance floor, that he won't get a little too tipsy and maybe fall in the living room again. It isn't easy to watch your mother's face. To watch her miss him in every little moment as well. To watch her living out her own personal hell in front of my family, your family, and all of our friends.

It isn't easy to know that you are the only person I've ever brought home that my dad didn't want to immediately strangle. But at the same time, it is easy.

You were the one, all along. We knew it from the moment we embraced on the street corner. We knew it, and we didn't shy away from the power of it. Thank fucking god we didn't run away from it. It would have been easy to run.

It was easy to stand in front of our world of people and have my brother marry us. It was easy to have my sister there beside me, and your brother beside you--the most important people in our worlds, supporting this huge and scary step. It is easy to remember the vows we wrote for each other, the tree we planted together as a symbol of our union, the wish ribbons hanging from the arbor under which we were married. It is easy to remember dancing with our friends and family, laughing, spinning, watching the night fly away like sands through the hourglass, but on fast forward. It is very easy to remember exchanging rings, seeing your eyes fill with tears as I walked myself down the aisle, hearing everyone--especially my grandfather--belly laugh at my brother's declaration of his vested power.

On this day, two years ago, I was as excited, anxious, happy and as sad as I have ever been. I know we were both exhausted, because we both collapsed in bed that night, without even trying to get into each other's pants. Funny that we didn't even have sex on our wedding night. (I mean, not that we needed to; our sex life has been nothing short of fucking amazing, and continues to blow my mind.)

I look back over these last two years, and I have to say that I am impressed by us, honey. We have grown in ways that I never imagined possible. We have taught each other so much about love and commitment. We have made it through some very tough times.

It would be a gross understatement for me to say that I love you more now than I ever have. Robb, I have never known a love like this. I never imagined that I would be so lucky to have a love like this. You were always out there, waiting, and I was always here, waiting. We were waiting for each other, and every step we have taken in our lives has brought us to where we are today.

Marriage is strange; it is both constricting and freeing. It is rigid, but flexible. It is strange but familiar. It is a perfect balance of selfishness and selflessness.

The words that were spoken as Ginger's wedding, just two weeks ago, still ring true for me: This marriage is completely unique. There has never been, and never will be, a union like ours, for we are both individuals, and we have created something that never existed before. We are moving the world forward just by simply being together.

I want to say how proud I am of you, Robb. You are fearless. You are creative. You are vulnerable. You are chasing your dream and succeeding. You are strong, everyday, for me. You are exploring yourself in ways that you never previously imagined, and you are becoming more You every day. You, Robb; you are my heart.

YOU ARE MY HEART!!!!

I LOVE YOU!!!

Marry me.

I Married a Saint.

So yesterday I hosted a little girly get-together, the Ladies Listening Lounge, basically because I want to hear some new music, but I'm too lazy to actually, you know, go seek it out, so I disguised my laziness under the guise of a girl's night with wine and cheese and little sweet potato pies and invited over the hottest girls I know and told them to bring some music. And it was great, but that has little to do with my saintly husband, since, you know, he's a he, and this was a ladies thing, but I will get to that.

Ladies Listening Lounge (maybe I should change it to Lazy Ladies Lounge; I really like the "L" thing—it makes me feel like a hip lesbian or something) was a smashing success, mainly because I heard some great new music and we managed to kill 4.5 bottles of wine in about 2.5 hours. And, as I mentioned earlier, I invited the hottest women I know, so that was good.

But the reason that my husband (I've been calling him my boyfriend lately because we have so much fun together that saying husband just sounds too stuffy; we need a new word) is a saint is because when I RUSHED through the door at 5:10, he was there, cleaning the house. AND he helped me make dinner and delicious sweet potato pie thingies, and he MOPPED THE KITCHEN FLOOR, and that my friends, is why he will now be known as The Saint.



HE MOPPED THE KITCHEN FLOOR. Willingly! And I didn't even mention it to him. AND I was going to do it before the hot ladies came over! AND DID I MENTION HE MOPPED THE KITCHEN FLOOR?! Obviously, you can sense how vile and repulsive I find this particular chore.

Then, after he helped me cook and clean, he left. The Saint is a saint. Maybe that's my new word for him, instead of husband/boyfriend. If I hadn't been exhausted and ddddrunk last night when he came home, I would have given him a "home" to "come" to, if you get my quotes.

The "Romantic" Story

Last night, in bed with a sweetly snoring husband, I began thinking about a conversation I might one day have with a possible offspring.

I guess it's part of the "American Dream" (for women, anyway): the perfect boyfriend, the perfect proposal, the perfect wedding. When these things come to mind, certain images of this perfection are also called up. The engagement ring in the dessert/champagne flute, the princess bride, the happily ever after. And while all these things are well and good, they don't even come close to what I would consider perfection.

I have been with my husband for almost three years now, and just over one year of marital bliss. I thought about the night we officially became engaged. It wasn't anything special; he didn't surprise me with some romantic plan (well, romantic being incredibly subjective). In fact, my engagement symbol wasn't even a ring. It was a necklace, with the word "Beloved" carved in a Celtic script. He couldn't wait; it came in the mail and he had to give it to me right away.

Last night, as I thought back to these powerful memories, I realized that they make a pretty boring story about how my romance with R has grown (from a conventional viewpoint). I started tracing it back to the beginning, when we rediscovered one another after a few years. That, I saw, was the romantic story. It's hard to have a beautiful engagement story (which is almost requisite for a woman; all of the "oh, how did he propose?!" questions are pretty embarrasing after telling the "he pulled the necklace out of the post" answer several hundred times) when the engagement itself has no definitely beginning. So, our romantic story begins at the beginning. It is virtually impossible to have a sweet engagement story when you know from the very first moment that you will marry this being. I am lucky that I can say that.

We didn't need a flowery engagement. It happened in stages, really. We knew, from the first moment we ran into each other on the street in a quaint mountain town, that this was IT. When you know from the beginning, what's the point of wasting money on a fancy restaurant, or hotel room? There was nothing, for R and I, that could be more romantic than our daily life together. We moved in together immediately (like, within a week). When he came back from visiting with family in Savannah, he brought me a woven flower made from dry palm fronds. When I had my head busted open at a punk show, he drove 3.5 hours (from where he lived at the time) in the middle of the night to make sure I was ok. Waking up to find him in my bed the next morning was such a beautiful moment. I knew then that this man would do anything for me, that he had no fear of being open, loving, and true to himself. We had no problem with "I love yous" or the marriage discussions, or kids discussions. There was no awkwardness, because we were free to be ourselves with one another.

Now, three years later, with many good and bad memories between us, I can easily say that I love him more deeply than I have ever loved anyone, including my family. He is my heart.

So, when the day comes that my child asks me how Dad proposed to me, I'll say, we didn't need a proposal honey. We knew from the first moment we saw one another that we would be married, and live our lives together.

I don't think you can get more romantic than that.